Candida, Inflammation, Autism & Auto-immune Diseases

When you awake in the morning, before you put anything into your mouth, work up some saliva and spit it into a clear glass of water. Within 1-30 minutes, look in the glass. If there are strings coming down from your saliva, or if the water turned cloudy, or if your saliva sank to the bottom, you may have an overgrowth of Candida.

Healthy saliva will simply float on the top!

(You may want to put out a glass of water in the bathroom or on the nightstand the night before you wish to do the home Candida Saliva test, just to remind yourself not to brush your teeth prior to spitting into the glass.)

Why does this work?

Candida overgrowth begins in the colon. Over time, as the fungal yeast multiplies it begins to migrate through the digestive tract, moving up into the small intestine, then the stomach (bloating, indigestion), up the esophagus and into the mouth. If it becomes strongly entrenched there you can see a white film on your tongue and inside your cheeks. Once it has moved up to the mouth and you spit into a glass of water the yeast will sink because it is heavier than water. If there is no yeast it will float on top.

This following information is based on Dr. Bruce Semons book An Extraordinary Power to Heal (2003). This page gives general explanations about how yeast can cause so-called autoimmune illnesses and chronic disease. For detailed explanations, including an extensive chapter on how the immune system is supposed to work and how yeast prevents it from working correctly we recommend that you read An Extraordinary Power to Heal.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Crohn’s Disease, Fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Sjogrens, Numbness in the hands, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Ulcerative colitis: What do these have in common? They all respond to dietary intervention and anti-yeast treatment (Excess Sugar/Candida Cleanse see below).

Why might chronic diseases ranging from psoriasis to ulcerative colitis to arthritis respond to dietary intervention and anti-yeast treatment? These diseases are all marked by the body appearing to attack itself. They are called “auto-immune diseases.

I have always considered the idea of the body attacking itself as a strange idea. Why should the body do that? In 40 years of research, the biomedical research community has been unable to come up with any answer. Maybe the concept is wrong.

Maybe the body is not attacking itself primarily. Maybe the primary target is not the body but the yeast Candida albicans. To understand how such terrible diseases can occur, we need to look at the interactions of Candida albicans and the immune system.

Yeast are normal residents of the intestinal tract. After antibiotics, yeast grow to fill in the space left by dead bacteria and the yeast continue to grow at this higher level. The body still must contain the yeast so that the yeast does not invade the rest of the body. If Candida invades the body, the result is often death.

The best way to look at the immune system is to understand that the immune system has both defensive and offensive weapons. The main defensive weapon is inflammation. Inflammation is like putting up a wall, a hot wall, which makes it difficult for invading foreign microorganisms to get through. Inflammation will occur anytime the immune system contacts a foreign invader. But as you know the inflammation is painful. Along with the inflammation, should come the offensive weapons which kill the foreign invader. The problem is that Candida has many tricks to evade the offensive weapons of the body’s immune system.

Candida is a very difficult organism for the body’s immune system to clear. Why?

Yeast have a capsule on the outside which prevents the first line (phagocytic) white blood cells of the body from engulfing the yeast and killing it. So the body must rely on the other parts of the immune system.

Candida has other tricks to evade the body’s immune system. One of these tricks is to change its outside. The immune system recognizes the outside receptors of the invading organism and then sends out signals to start an immune response. Some of the immune responders then look for cells with those receptors. Candida albicans can change the receptors which it is displaying, making it difficult for the body’s immune cells to react appropriately. In essence, Candida albicans is a moving target, which changes its form.

The most important thing to know about Candida is that Candida albicans can make factors which suppress the immune response to itself. These factors can be found in the circulation of people with significant Candida infections. When these factors are purified and placed in cultures of immune cells, these immune cells do not develop the responses to Candida which they are supposed to develop. In other words, Candidacan make factors, which prevent the body from reacting to and killing the Candida. These factors prevent the total eradication of Candida from the body.

The Candida can suppress the offensive weapons of the body’s immune system. But the inflammation will still be generated because when the immune system detects a foreign invader, there will always be inflammation. The problem is that the foreign invader, the Candida, is not going away, because the immune systems offensive weapons are suppressed. The inflammation will remain and inflammation is painful.

In the intestinal tract, there is Candida, which tries to invade the intestinal wall, and the immune system responds with inflammation. The problem is that the Candida suppresses the immune systems offensive weapons, so the Candida stays and the inflammation is prolonged. This prolonged inflammation is called ulcerative colitis if it occurs in the large intestine and it is called Crohn’s disease if it occurs in the small intestine. These disorders are prolonged inflammation resulting from the immune systems inability to clear Candida.

In ulcerative colitis, there is painful inflammation of the intestine rather than regulated containment. As the body fights the yeast in the intestine, some of the cells fighting the yeast circulate and come into contact with yeast on the skin and start an inflammation there, leading to eczema and psoriasis.

Candida causes autoimmune problems such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis in this way. Candida puts out receptors on its cell surface which are actually human receptors for connective tissue and the immune system. If the body attacks the Candida in the intestinal tract, the body’s immune system will attack anything which looks like the Candida. Because of the connective tissue receptors on Candida, the body’s immune system may attack other cells in the body which have these receptors.

Many tissues such as the joints have connective tissue and as the body attacks the Candida, the body will also attack these cells. The result is painful joints or other inflamed tissues.

Candida also has receptors which are similar to those in the brain. When these cells are attacked, the result is multiple sclerosis.

In other words, Candida acts as a long-term vaccination displaying the body’s own cellular receptors to the body’s immune system. When the immune system sees such receptors for a long enough time, it will attack cells which display such receptors, which includes the cells of the body. There is research which shows that such immune system reactions occur. The yeast Candida is the primary target. If the Candida is removed the body stops attacking itself.

THE SOLUTION : Simple and Effective:

In addition to avoiding all white products (sugar, flour, etc.) take specially selected essential oil products. Test again for candida and if you still have some remaining repeat the 10 day process with essential oils that have been demonstrated to have in-vitro antimicrobial properties and that also include caprylic acid that has been traditionally used as for its specific health-supporting properties in the gut.

Extract from PubMed.com

Journal of Applied Microbiology. 1999 Jun;86(6):985-90.

Antimicrobial activity of essential oils and other plant extracts.

Hammer KA, Carson CF, Riley TV.

Department of Microbiology, The University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia. khammer@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

The antimicrobial activity of plant oils and extracts has been recognized for many years. However, few investigations have compared large numbers of oils and extracts using methods that are directly comparable. In the present study, 52 plant oils and extracts were investigated for activity against Acinetobacter baumanii, Aeromonas veronii biogroup sobria, Candida albicans, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia col, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serotype typhimurium, Serratia marcescens and Staphylococcus aureus, using an agar dilution method. Lemongrass, Oregano and bay inhibited all organisms at concentrations of < or = 2.0% (v/v). Six oils did not inhibit any organisms at the highest concentration, which was 2.0% (v/v) oil for apricot kernel, evening primRose, macadamia, pumpkin, sage and sweet almond. Variable activity was recorded for the remaining oils. Twenty of the plant oils and extracts were investigated, using a broth microdilution method, for activity against C. albicans, Staph. aureus and E. coli. The lowest minimum inhibitory concentrations were 0.03% (v/v) Thyme oil against C. albicans and E. coli and 0.008% (v/v) Vetiver oil against Staph. aureus. These results support the notion that plant essential oils and extracts may have a role as pharmaceuticals and preservatives.

Extract from PubMed.com

Hammer, K. A., & Riley, T. V. (1998).

In-vitro activity of essential oils, in particular Melaleuca alternifolia (tea tree) oil and tea tree oil products, against Candida spp. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 42, 591-5. The study examined the in-vitro activity of a range of essential oils against the yeast candida. The final concentrations of tea tree oil were obtained from the diluted products in sterile distilled water after inoculation. A variety number of Candida isolates were tested for sensitivity to tea tree oil by the methods of agar dilution and broth microdilution. The study found the majority of tea tree oil tested possess anticandidal properties in vitro and suggested that they may be useful in the topical treatment of superficial candida infections.

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